Conventional techniques of delivering fluid to a recipient can include drawing a fluid from a fluid source into a chamber of a diaphragm pump. After the chamber is filled, a respective fluid delivery system applies a pressure to the chamber causing the fluid in the chamber to be delivered to a corresponding patient. The rate at which the fluid is delivered to the recipient may vary depending upon the magnitude of pressure applied to the chamber.
Eventually, after applying pressure to the chamber for a sufficient amount of time, all of the fluid in the chamber is delivered to the recipient.
In most applications, the amount of fluid drawn into the chamber of the diaphragm pump is substantially less than the amount of fluid to be delivered to the patient in total. To deliver the appropriate amount of fluid to the patient over time, the fluid delivery system repeats the cycle of drawing fluid from the fluid source into the chamber, and then applying pressure to the chamber to deliver the fluid to the recipient.
According to conventional techniques, based on the amount of elapsed time between time successive operations of drawing fluid into and expelling the fluid out of the chamber in the diaphragm pump, the fluid delivery system is able to determine the rate at which fluid is delivered to a corresponding patient.